Acknowledgments

This guide would not have been possible without the information, advice, ideas and action of countless principals, teachers, parents, students and community members from across all three education sectors, educational researchers and personnel in Victoria's Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

We thank them for sharing their ideas and experiences with us.

SUMMARY

The guide discusses the things that teachers, parents, principals, students and community members do to improve a school and education more broadly. These are grouped into four key areas:

1. Your school as a strong coalition
2. Powerful learning in your school
3. K-12 and community hub models
4. Resources, support and facilities.

What is this guide?

Four Ways to Improve Your School is written for everyone who has a part to play in helping to improve outcomes. It is an extensive collection of good ideas and practices from many schools. No one school could thus possibly do (or need to do) all of these things.

A dose of realism is required. Some of the many ideas below will be rightly viewed as not 'do-able' (at least in the shorter-term) due to limited time and resources (and the huge workloads faced by principals and teachers) along with other constraints.

This obviously raises the basic issue of adequate resources and support for schools to work on the many things that they would like to do. This is discussed in the fourth part of this guide.

As well, the guide is not a ‘how-to’ manual with one formula to follow in all situations. Every situation is obviously different and also depends, of course, on the resources that are available.

Nonetheless, as there are obviously common core issues and challenges that all schools face, this guide provides a broad framework for thinking about and discussing school improvement, consistent with the e5 model, that can be adapted and used in ways that are appropriate for a particular context.

How to use this guide

School leadership teams, school councils and boards, teachers' committees, parent groups, SRCs, etc. may find what follows to be useful as a basis for in-depth conversations about, and planning for, what they may want to change and improve over time.

School community, staff, council and other forums do the following:

1. Identify a few key ideas from each of the four areas
2. Look at what the school is already doing with each
3. Explore what may need to be changed or improved.

A concise PowerPoint version of Four Ways is also available for leadership team, staff, parent and school council meetings. Contact VICCSO at info@viccso.org.au or Nicholas Abbey on 0402 152 634 or at nicholas.abbey@optusnet.com.au for a copy and presenters.

As well, during 2010-2011, each of the four areas will be illustrated via video interviews with principals, teachers, parents and students together with links to an array of local school initiatives. This is an exciting project.

INTRODUCTION

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer

Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success. Henry Ford

What have we learned about how best to improve a school and learning outcomes for students?

The following brings together some of the key things that we have learned from teachers, parents, principals, students, education department staff and researchers.

Sharing such information obviously helps us all to plan and work for improvement and to overcome the sense of powerlessness that we can all feel from time to time.

Four Fundamental Areas

The practical things that we - as teachers, parents, principals, students and community members - do to improve a school and education more broadly can be grouped into four key areas:

1. Your school as a strong coalition
2. Powerful learning in your school
3. K-12 and community hub models
4. Resources, support and facilities.

Although it is obviously impossible to work fully on all of these things at any one time, due to limited resources and huge workloads, each of these four areas informs the ideas and actions embodied in the other three, creating a total effect.

The four areas (based on practical examples from schools and communities) are briefly discussed in what follows.

1. Your school as a strong coalition

A strong coalition within a school community can be the difference between the success and failure of improvement work.

Many principals, teachers and parents indicated that they liked the use of the word 'coalition' - as it can immediately communicate the idea of individuals and groups working and learning together in a coordinated way to achieve shared goals.

And coalitions get stronger when they focus on shared - as well as achievable - goals. Experiencing early success is obviously important, as many people in school communities may well feel powerless in face of the enormity of the work for improvement.

Groups in a school coalition

In a school community, the ‘groups’ in a coalition obviously include - broadly speaking - parents, teachers, students and community members as well as in a more specific, formal sense the:

• School council and its sub-committees
• Principal and leadership team
• Teachers’ and staff committees (e.g., a consultative committee, AEU branch and learning area committees)
• Parents and friends group
• Student leadership groups (e.g., JSC and SRC)
• Departmental personnel.

A school’s coalition may also include ‘external’ groups and organisations (e.g., other schools, community groups, sporting clubs, local government and health agencies). Such groups often prove to be among a school community's most valuable assets.

How does a school become a strong coalition?

From what we have seen in the most effective schools, and as led by many principals, teachers and parents, there are five things that schools do to become a coalition. These are:

1. The pivotal role of the principal and other leaders
2. A school council at the core of the coalition
3. Shared values in a rights-based school
4. A school-family-community partnerships policy
5. Shared goals in the school's strategic plan
6. Organising leadership teams around the goals.

Each is briefly discussed.

1.The pivotal role of the principal and other leaders

A coalition requires vision and hope among the core leaders - who may be principals, teachers, parents and students. It also requires organisation on all levels - local, regional and state-wide/national.

Principals (as well as teacher, parent and student leaders) and members of the AEU, AEU Principals, APF, Parents Victoria, VASSP, VPA and VicSRC, who are striving to build strong school communities and coalitions, emphasise that they work to:

• Disperse leadership. They help all school community members to understand that effective leadership is dispersed within schools. Very effective leadership can come from ‘unusual suspects'. This means identifying and supporting such people among not only staff members but also parents and students
• Create cohesion. Schools emphasise that, while it is of the utmost importance to disperse leadership, there is also a need for both strong central management coordination and a strong governing body (a school council or board) to build cohesion
• Create a brains trust of people. Leaders surround themselves with, and build their own personal network of, people who are thinking afresh about the possibilities in education
• Nurture relationships. Some principals indicate that they seek to convene bi-monthly parent forums as well as regular student forums - as an opportunity to really listen to students and families. These principals report that these meetings prompt them to stretch their thinking and reshape their practice
• Be advocates for all. Principals and other leaders who build strong coalitions represent everyone in the community equally. They seek to understand other people's perspectives and ensure that individual voices and views are heard and that a school's governing body considers minority viewpoints
• Strive for real consensus. If the council or a committee cannot vote unanimously, effective leaders will often encourage members to delay the decision for further consideration. If need be, with major issues, a facilitator may be called in to assist
• Publicise community efforts. The best school newsletters regularly publicise the contributions of parents, teachers and students – and profile their work as school community leaders.

Leadership development for parents is crucial - and often happens informally. Parents who may feel isolated with their 'private' issues are supported by principals to themselves become school leaders when issues become 'public' school council policy matters.

2. A school council at the core of the coalition

A strong coalition within a school community obviously depends on a school council or board that functions as a strong, inclusive, united governing board - and that does not just deal with trivial issues and is not negatively affected by factionalism.

During discussions with many principals and school councils, a shared view was that key indicators of good governance are needed - to assess strengths/weaknesses in current practice.

Based on the good practice of school councils and the guidelines in the Department's Making the Partnership Work, we have developed ten indicators of good governance. Together, they can comprise a self-assessment and improvement tool for a council/board.

See these indicators at the What is Good Governance? section.

3. Shared values in a rights-based school

A key challenge that schools face is to develop and promote a clear set of broadly agreed and meaningful values - not just rules - that has been developed via the participation of staff, students and the wider school community and is actively upheld by all.

Schools have rich insights into how best to develop shared values.

A rights-based school can provide a shared values framework which, in turn, may help to build an even stronger school community and school coalition. Based on what schools already do, a rights-based school may seek to more systematically:

• Teach about students’ rights and human rights
• Model rights and respect in all relationships
• Reinforce the understanding that along with rights there are responsibilities.

For more information, see Rights-Based Schools on this website as well as the UK Rights Respecting Schools model.

4. School-family-community partnerships policy

A step toward a strong coalition is a school-family-community partnerships policy that includes practical guidelines in relation to:

• Communication between home and school
• Links with community agencies and groups
• A strong partnership with local government
• Learning at home and in the community
• Technology use and technology planning
• Shared school-family-community goals
• Participation in school decision making
• Accountability to the school community.

As developed by many schools, this kind of policy may become the core guiding idea that influences all of a school's decisions, actions and practice.

If your school wants to prepare such a policy, the Department has a useful framework for writing a policy. And contact VICCSO for an example of a partnerships policy.

5. Shared school-family-community goals

Taking the time to build truly shared goals is all-important. If worked on properly, a school's strategic planning can:

• Separate the important from the urgent
• Develop ideas for realistic, incremental improvement but that are also bold in the commitment to real change over time
• Build unity of purpose between the principal, staff and school council and establish priorities around truly shared goals.

In preparing a strategic plan that is made up of truly shared goals, good practices that we have seen in schools include:

• Assessing community needs and issues through a community survey that can involve all parents, teachers and students
• A series of facilitated forums to maximise teacher, parent and student participation in the planning process
• Making sure that school council sub-committees have adequate time to prepare their thoughts and input into the plan
• Developing broad agreement about the goals and strategies that are most likely to improve learning outcomes for all students.

The strong view that was put by many schools is this: a community-friendly plan reflects staff and community thinking and input as much as an education department's priorities. Only such a plan leads to improved outcomes for all.  If, however, a plan is prepared with token staff and community 'buy-in' at the end, its impact may be minimal.

A plan is the basis for parents, teachers and students - and community groups such as sporting clubs - really working together!

It may include school-family-community goals such as the goal that all students become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens. Or the goal of building positive, confident adolescent identity and self-esteem!

Other goals may include work around environmental sustainability, the optimum use of information technology and the development of a rights-based school (RBS).

To develop shared goals, a strong, highly experienced facilitator is also obviously important. Whether the facilitator is an insider or outsider, the choice should be acceptable to everyone.

6. Organising leadership teams around the goals

Sub-committees assist the work of a school council by exploring issues in more detail than is possible at a school council meeting and providing opportunities to involve and utilise the expertise and experiences of all members of the school community (and wider community) who are not members of school council.

What happens in many schools is that the principal, staff and school council from time to time review the numbers and types of current school committees and identify:

• Committee problems such as an unclear purpose, a lack of focus on the future or simply too many
• Duplication, i.e., school council and staff committees that operate separately and yet cover similar issues (e.g., an education and a curriculum committee)
• Opportunities to build teacher-parent-student synergy in whole school community teams and what team-building may be required (e.g., using Belbin's 'Team Roles'). (Rob Ryan at wisdom+work and e-mail info@wisdompluswork.com.au can assist with clarifying team tasks, roles and boundaries)

The guiding principle that many school community members tell us is: less is more! Better to have, say, five high-level teams aligned to the goals in a plan than too many micro-committees.

As developed by many principals, teachers, parents, students and school councils, examples of high-level, whole school community teams built around clear, shared goals include:

• Pedagogy and curriculum team (and team leader who may be the principal, an assistant principal or teacher)
• Learning technologies team (and team leader who may be a teacher or parent with professional ICT experience )
• Education for sustainability team (and team leader)
• P-12 and community partnerships team (and team leader)
• Student participation team (and team leader).

The school's leadership and governance structure and strategic plan and goals are then in sync with each other!

When principal class members, teachers, parents and students are actively involved in shared decision making and share some team leadership roles (e.g., in a team such as learning technologies), what is likely to emerge is a more strategic, whole school community focus on how best to improve learning outcomes.

Thus, for example, a team built around a goal such as education for sustainability may unite teachers, staff, parents, students and community members and obtain information about:

• Current school policy and operations (e.g., waste, water, energy, grounds, gardens and the canteen)
• Curriculum planning
• Teaching and learning
• School-family-community partnerships
• Local community issues that can be addressed (such as biodiversity and habitat improvement)
• What policy and action plan may need to be developed.
  

Likewise, if the optimum use of technology is a key, shared goal, a teacher, parent and student team may put together a technology plan that includes:

• Our shared goal and objectives for information and communication technology (ICT)
• Learning, curriculum and ICT links
• Family and community partnerships
• Home-school communication
• Infrastructure, support and PD
• Action plan by year
• Roles and responsibilities
• Budget and funding strategies
• Evaluation and review.

It is important to emphasise that such school community teams are not time-consuming. Some of the most effective teams that we have seen in schools may only meet three to four times a year. Team leaders can also obviously meet routinely with the principal.

2. powerful learning in your school

What is powerful learning for all students? As is being creatively developed by educators, it combines three things:

1. The very best teaching practices in the classroom and other settings that evolve in tandem with the very best educational values, theories and philosophies, visions and goals, evidence and research and policies (or P for pedagogy)
2. Leading edge information and communication technologies (T) as a means of individual and collective expression, experience, inquiry, understanding and interpretation together with teachers' and students' capacities to use technology
3. Curriculum content (C) that, for example, supports deep learning, fosters a coherent P-12 approach and seamlessly combines academic knowledge, concepts, theories and principles with applied learning and real world problem solving.

Supported by the right resources, it is the mix of advances in P, T and C that puts the ‘power’ into powerful learning experiences for all students and reduces the achievement gap.

How schools develop a shared policy framework for powerful learning and use tools such as e5 to do this are discussed here. Before looking at this, a comment about pedagogy (click on the word for a definition of this important concept).

Why pedagogy is everybody's business

Broad agreement about pedagogy is the basis of building strong, whole school community partnerships for powerful learning. In a word, pedagogy is everybody’s business: schools, teachers, parents, students and communities. Why is this the case?

The writings of Professor Robin Alexander deepen understanding as to why pedagogy is everybody's business. He distinguishes between the work of teachers in the classroom and pedagogy which includes, but is broader than, the practice of teaching.

As Professor Alexander emphasises, "this wider context matters no less than what goes on in classrooms". Teaching practice and the wider context of pedagogy/community participation are the two halves that have to be brought together to bring about significant improvement in learning outcomes for all students.

Many schools have tremendous skills in developing staff and whole school community agreement about pedagogy (even if the word ‘pedagogy’ is not always used to describe this work).

Agreement around pedagogy emerges when staff and school community members jointly consider and develop things such as:

1. Values, when staff and school community members develop shared values that are incorporated into all school policies and practices and guide teaching and learning in the classroom
2. Educational theories and philosophy. For example, if success at school is considered by some to depend more on 'natural ability' than student effort and perseverance, schools profile theories of intelligence and learning that support the view that all students can become successful learners
3. A shared vision and goals in a community such as the goal that all students become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens
4. Links to evidence and research, i.e., ongoing progress in the interaction, understanding and collaboration between the three communities of research, practice and policy
5. Policies such as a Cultural and Social Inclusion Policy and Plan that may provide guidelines in relation to how social class, culture and ethnicity impact on teaching and learning.

In essence, therefore, the very best teaching practices are most likely to evolve in tandem with the core values, theories and philosophy, vision and goals, links to evidence and research and policies - in short, the participation, partnerships and pedagogy - of a school's leaders, staff, parents, students and community.

To look at how broad agreement about pedagogy evolves in a systematic, formal and explicit way, we now look at the challenge of developing a shared policy framework for powerful learning.

Consistency across a whole school community

To ensure that powerful learning experiences are developed consistently over time across a whole school community, including in classrooms, homes and community settings, a school may develop a shared policy framework for powerful learning.

If a school's strategic plan is not built around such a framework, this may suggest that there is no deeply and widely shared vision of learning let alone a coherent strategy to improve outcomes.

Frameworks that schools develop include models for effective learning, powerful learning, 21st century learning, etc. Whatever the name, the best frameworks that we have seen are steps toward the following. They are likely to be:

• Collaborative. Through e5 conversations, they are built around the shared ideas and insights of teachers, parents and students - reflecting the cultural and social mix of the school community
• Credible. Based on evidence and informed by the best available educational research such as the work of Professor Robin Alexander (e.g., see his book entitled Essays on Pedagogy)
• Coherent. The pieces are not a 'to do' list but rather fit together and are mutually reinforcing
• Compelling. It paints a vivid picture of what could be, creating a deep sense of future possibilities
• Culturally and socially inclusive. It promotes an inclusive curriculum and learning pathways that challenge the old separation of students into academic and applied learning.

Many schools have long had rich experiences in developing culturally and socially inclusive curricula and learning pathways.

A school's Cultural and Social Inclusion Policy and Plan (a brief but substantial policy) can promote this educational shift.

Developing a framework for powerful learning

How do schools go about developing a shared policy framework for powerful learning?

The professional knowledge, skills and experience of the principal and teachers are obviously the basis of powerful learning for all. 

The sheer volume and complexity of educators' knowledge and skills - the mix of pedagogy, technology and curriculum - make it difficult for people who are not teachers to contribute.

However, an education or teaching and learning sub-committee of a school council as well as other school community forums can inform educators' professional knowledge and help to drive thinking about powerful learning. It can bring together teachers, parents, students and critical friends to:

• Exchange information and share experiences and perspectives
• Pose questions and clarify viewpoints
• Look at how the curriculum and learning can become more culturally and socially inclusive
• Jointly explore the best available educational research
• Through this process, begin to develop a shared, school community policy framework for 21st century education.

Critical friends are important! Schools are creative in this regard. Some invite people outside of education altogether - to add a different perspective - as well as members of associations (e.g., the Australian College of Educators) to be part of their teams.

Powerful conversations about the future of learning

I was impressed with how frank and open the discussion was. It challenged and confronted all of us with new thoughts and ideas, compelling us to think afresh about the possibilities in education and what can be done to improve outcomes. School principal following a school community conversation

If a school community framework is to really make a difference, the process for developing it is as important as the framework itself.

Development of a framework thus requires powerful conversations among all stakeholders. Easier said than done, but principals report that the pay-offs by way of improved learning outcomes can be immense! Especially when school community members of culturally and socially diverse backgrounds are involved.

What makes a conversation powerful?

What is a 'powerful' conversation? Schools organise workshops and forums in which teachers, parents and students are involved in exploring key questions - prompting many ideas and insights which a leadership team, education sub-committee and school council can build into a shared framework for powerful learning.

A powerful conversation can open up new possibilities for practice. It may help a school and its community to:

• Build trust and respect in the face of different views
• Listen deeply to understand what others really care about
• Address tough dilemmas and competing priorities
• Think strategically while operating practically.

Yet at work, in school communities and in our personal lives we can both consciously and unconsciously avoid having the conversations that may make a major difference.

Using e5 as a school community conversation tool

Designed to support the work of school leaders and teachers in improving instructional practice and developing professional learning, Darrell Fraser emphasises that the Department's

“e5 instructional model is not a recipe for teacher practice but rather a framework to inform conversations".

The e5 model has many uses. As a school community tool it can:

• Build a strong school community coalition of constituencies and voices (teachers, parents, students and community members)
• Sustain an on-going community dialogue between the many groups and partnerships in a school and its community
• Contribute to the development of a shared understanding and framework for powerful learning experiences in classrooms, homes, workplaces and community settings.

The 5 Es of engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate can be used on many levels: by teachers reflecting on classroom practice, leadership teams and school councils and parents and community members. While the ideas provided below can be used by any one of these groups, they are intended for broader, more inclusive gatherings that involve all school community members.

For more information about each of the 5Es and how they can be used by schools and their communities, see our Tools for Powerful Conversations section on this website.

3. K-12 and Community Hub models

The lack of a coherent approach to school improvement partly explains the mixed success with many so-called reforms.

School improvement efforts increasingly focus on a more coherent approach to education which can result in new models.

As has been led by many schools, a more coherent approach means building stronger links between:

• The 'parts' of education (e.g., several primary and secondary schools working together to develop K-12 or P-12 schooling, the co-location of a primary school and a pre-school or a learning community involving schools and a TAFE college or university)
• A school (or cluster of schools) and the wider community (e.g., health agencies, workplaces and groups such as sporting clubs) to develop community hubs or (formal or informal) learning communities (such as co-curricular activities).

Both are most likely in schools where there is a strong relationship between the principal, school council president and school council with a deeply shared view of the future of education.

K-12 and P-12 schooling

Research and teachers' creative practice in Victoria support the idea of a K-12 approach (if kindergartens are also involved in an education partnership) or P-12 approach to education.

Recently, the Country Education Project and a group of P-12 school principals developed a research project that inquired into current and potential practice with P-12 schooling.

A P-12 approach takes shape when primary and secondary schools work in a cluster toward a shared view of teaching and learning and a seamless curriculum. The very future of education and public education in particular may pivot on P-12 schooling!

There is a long history of teachers from primary and secondary schools working in teams to improve middle years learning and transitions from primary to secondary schools.

A challenge, over time, will be to even more systematically plan and integrate the curriculum from a P-12 perspective. As Bill Stringer puts it:

“Two cultures dominate schooling: a primary culture and a secondary culture. Both have sound ideas about the ways for thinking about curriculum and learning in their schools but, when placed together, they make nonsense of the learning continuum with which each of their students is involved.”

While this is not true with many schools (that have long worked to blend primary and secondary school cultures and teaching methods), a continuum of learning and development from kindergarten through to university and college is the next big thing.

For more information, see the P-12 education partnerships section on the website. This section distils the lessons from fifty schools.

Your school or cluster as a community hub

As well, the work of schools, and adult education and training, challenge the view that schools close when children leave.

Hubs are the community centres of the future. Many may be based at schools or be associated with a cluster of schools.

A school or cluster as a community hub may be characterised by its work, over time, toward some or many of the following:

• Offering a ‘full service’ in terms of addressing locally identified needs (educational, social, health, etc.) and co-located services such as a pre-school or sports centre
• Welcoming and useful community meeting spaces and access to community information for students and parents
• Having spaces and processes for identifying, understanding and addressing community needs on an on-going basis
• Providing parents/students and all stakeholders in the community with opportunities to participate in decision-making
• Building stronger, more strategic partnerships with community agencies, groups, local government, etc.
• Providing access to culturally appropriate health and social services through qualified professionals (nurses, social workers, psychologists, nutritionists, etc.)
• Programs that link young people with adults from the community who can provide life skills, mentoring, role modelling, etc.
• Local community sporting clubs and programs (including fitness)
• Local community arts programs (e.g., drama and visual arts)
• Vocational/training programs for young people and adults (e.g., re-training, computer skills and life skills programs)
• Adult English as a second language programs
• Community education (workshops, lectures and tutoring)
• Students supporting all of the above activities to earn community hours (e.g., via student action teams).

A community hub team may be established to do a stocktake as to what the school or cluster is already doing (using the list above as a checklist) and what may be developed in the future.

What your school is already doing and may plan to do

Some of the most pioneering work of schools has begun when a school’s leadership team and school council have ‘mapped’ the school's progress toward a more coherent model of education.

They thus look at what is already happening and what needs to improve or change in relation to some or many of the following:

• A P-12 schooling cluster
• A K-12 learning community
• Stronger home-school links
• Their school cluster as a community hub
• Working with health or community services
• Links with local workplaces
• Links with sporting clubs
• Their role in a regional network
• Partnerships with kindergartens
• Links with universities and colleges
• Sharing resources (e.g., sport and performing arts facilities)

Such mapping assesses what is 'do-able' in the shorter-term as well as what may be worked toward over several years.

Practical steps toward a new model

What are some of the other practical steps involved in developing a school as a community hub or a K-12 or P-12 cluster?

Based on the experiences and creative work of schools and their partners, the possibilities include:

1. Holding a dialogue about a K-12, community hub or other model. A community dialogue is the first step in identifying key issues and opportunities that can lead to better educational and health services provision. It is a forum that draws participants from as many parts of the community as possible. It is about active listening to develop deep, shared understanding. Participants may want to consult with other school communities and how they have gone about it
2. Beginning to build a governing body. A representative council is formed that commands widespread respect and support for its work. Teachers, parents and students must have a key stake in the council. The aim is shared decision making involving schools, families and community members
3. Writing a brief paper that begins to work out the way forward. A writing team is established to prepare a set of ‘talking points’ that clarify the reasons for, and guide the development of, a K-12 or P-12 cluster or community hub
4. Developing a plan. Following further discussions, a working party is established to draft a strategic plan that looks at: (a) the development of a new model and (b) the steps to be taken to achieve this. A draft of the plan is circulated
5. Moving to implementation. The governing body ensures that key stakeholders finalise and approve the plan and begins to develop an action plan for initial implementation.

As well, a school cluster or community hub partnership may require a formal memorandum of understanding or contract.

4. Resources, Support and facilities

As schools continue to develop better ways to improve school and post-school learning outcomes for all students and address many educational challenges such as the optimum use of new technologies, two sets of factors obviously come to the fore:

1. Resources, support and facilities
2. Effective advocacy and lobbying.

Success with the second is increasingly a precondition for the first. We look at each of these.

Resources and support

Educational change and improvement obviously requires the right amount and kind of resources and support. Some schools from time to time seek to more systematically map local community and state and federal resources and support to identify:

• The current resources that are available to a school or cluster or network of schools
• The new or additional resources that are needed to build a school’s or cluster’s capacity.

What do schools do? An individual school or, ideally, a cluster or network of schools may bring together a range of relevant stakeholders in a community resources team. The team's purpose may be to determine what resources and support need to be secured in order to achieve further progress with developing:

• The school or cluster as a strong coalition
• Powerful learning in the school community
• K-12, P-12, community hub and other partnership models of education and service delivery.

Team members may include representatives of the following:

• The principal class
• School council members
• Staff, students and parents
• School support staff
• Local community organisations.

Sources of support obviously extend beyond education and schools per se. The resources and support required for the on-going development of a high-quality education include:

• Education and training resources
• Health and community services
• Local government services
• Help for students to get into employment
• Cultural organisations
• Sport, leisure and other facilities.

Resource mapping is also not limited to identifying additional funds (as important as this is, of course). Schools also look at in-kind resources, non-material resources like local knowledge, parental expertise and organisations that share similar goals.

As well, not only are new resources identified during a mapping process, but the optimum use of current resources may also be examined including sustainable, eco-efficient resource use.

Resource mapping obviously takes time to do. Schools do report the tremendous value of this work but also the difficulties in committing adequate time to doing it as well as they would like.

School facilities

Although it is difficult to reach firm conclusions about the total impact of built learning environments on student outcomes, there is a growing body of literature that provides evidence of a strong link between school design and student achievement.

New designs (if underpinned by fresh thinking about education and schooling and supported by educational research) can optimise the powerful interplay of both teachers’ strong guided instruction and students’ independent inquiry, discovery and creativity.

The best school building designs may be the result of what Professor David Clarke calls “an integrative theory of classroom practice and learning”. This can avoid old, either-or absolutes in education such as teacher-centred versus student-centred spaces and strong guided instruction versus inquiry-based learning.

As well, the best practices that we have seen in schools with a capital works program pivot on a school facilities team that brings together teachers, parents and students to look at the relationship between spatial design and good pedagogy and, in so doing,

• Establishes ground rules for dialogue about the school's future
• Is inviting, open and inclusive at every step of the process
• Links school building design ideas with educational research.

ResourceSmart Schools

School facilities teams explore and advance sustainable resource use such as through ResourceSmart Schools, which links the many sustainability programs available to Victorian schools. 25 per cent of Victorian schools are participating in this program.

ResourceSmart Schools brings together sustainability educators and delivery organisations to help schools to:

• Minimise waste
• Save energy and water
• Promote biodiversity
• Cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

ResourceSmart Schools is managed by Sustainability Victoria. Sustainability Victoria is helping to deliver key components of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI Vic) framework to help Victorian schools embed sustainability into their school.

AuSSI encourages schools to improve the management of resources, including water, energy, waste, biodiversity and purchased products and materials. Schools in AuSSI Vic can aim for five star AuSSi accreditation by completing five modules.

Advocacy and lobbying

"Parents and citizens in public schools must learn the art of advocacy. They've got to blog, Twitter, text, lobby and argue". Former High Court Justice Michael Kirby

A more systematic mapping of resources and services is one thing, but advocacy and lobbying can be the decisive difference between something happening and remaining an idea.

And schools together with a range of educational stakeholder organisations suggested to us that it would be useful to share their insights into effective advocacy and lobbying, which is what the following brief discussion seeks to do.  

In these challenging times, school communities and stakeholders - at the grass-roots and regional and state levels - obviously need to develop the best ways to advocate and lobby for:

• Policies and programs that support 21st century education
• The highest level of government funding and support possible.

What is required is wider-spread advocacy to 'get the word out' about the future of education and being more effective in lobbying for the changes and resources that are needed.

And school council presidents and members have enormous capacity to influence educational change and improvement.

What are advocacy and lobbying?

Both advocacy and lobbying can be a way of improving education for all and exposing the ineffectiveness or injustice of existing policies and practices and suggesting how they could be changed.

Advocacy is speaking out on behalf of a cause (e.g., public education) or a community. It is an effort to shape public perception or to effect changes in policy, resourcing and legislation.

Lobbying can be more focused such as seeking to persuade individuals or groups with decision-making power to support your school community or a cluster of schools.

Schools often report that better use can be made of grass-roots meetings with local MPs and departmental personnel.

Advocacy - a Charter of Education Rights

A broad way to advocate for public education and educational improvement can be via a Charter of Education Rights (see the Education Rights - the 4 Rs section on this website).

A Charter can support students, parents, teachers, principals and other stakeholders to build a shared understanding of, and together advance, education rights.

Based on the ideas and experiences of educators, parents, students, principals and school community members, education rights can be grouped into four key areas:

1. Participation and accountability
2. Quality, equality and inclusion
3. Joined-up systems and services
4. New resources and facilities.

Working together to realise these rights can serve to:

• Build better education systems and schools
• Improve educational outcomes for everyone.

School community members may want to read the draft Charter on this website and to discuss it within their community. Schools may also want to have a Charter contact person.

Who to lobby

Complementing advocacy work, with lobbying it is important to consider the following:

• Choosing the right target for your lobbying
• Is your issue a regional, state or federal government issue?
• Do you want to lobby ministers and shadow ministers or backbenchers, local members and key party opinion leaders?
• Policy and ministerial advisers can also be useful people to know and to lobby
• It may be most appropriate to lobby departmental personnel - especially when dealing with the implementation of policy and legislation.

Ways to lobby

There are obviously many ways to lobby. A school community and other stakeholders can use:

• Letters but not rote letters (to politicians, departmental personnel and newspapers)
• Submissions
• Meetings and delegations
• Conferences
• Phone calls
• Targeted calls to talkback radio (being specific about what you seek but also not being overly negative).

It also involves non-local contacts such as speaking to (and working with) stakeholder groups with an interest in the future of education and schooling. These include VICCSO.

There are other specialist educational groups that can also assist with lobbying and exert influence.

While lobbying can be a one-off thing, larger, more concerted, well-publicised lobbying campaigns can be very effective.

But these obviously need to be well-organised and coordinated, with training and briefing for those taking part.

Productive meetings

To get the most out of meetings with politicians, ministers and departmental personnel, practical tips include:

• Do your homework about the person you are meeting with and their area of responsibility or, in the case of a politician, his or her electorate
• Prepare briefing material with care - be succinct and avoid a ‘shopping list’ approach
• Set out clearly what you are asking to be done
• Keep a group reasonably small (4-5 people)
• Make sure your group is diverse and representative
• Discuss in advance how to handle the meeting
• After the meeting, send a thank-you note, stay in touch and provide updates. 

Conclusion

We have looked at practical examples of how teachers, parents, principals, students and community members improve a school and the learning outcomes of all students.

In sum, these four powerful improvement levers that a school community and other stakeholders have ready access to are:

1. Developing a school as a strong coalition through:
1. The pivotal role of the principal and other leaders
2. A school council at the core of the coalition
3. A school-family-community partnerships policy
4. Shared goals in the school's strategic plan
5. Organising leadership teams around the goals.

2. Building conversations about learning and a shared, school community policy framework for 21st century education
3. Developing a school as a community hub or a P-12 cluster of schools - as part of a more coherent approach to improvement
4. Mapping the resources and services that a school needs and knowing how to advocate and lobby effectively for policies and programs that support 21st century education and the highest level of government funding and support possible.

It can obviously be useful for a school community to have this kind of 'big picture' as a broad context for developing its own ambitious yet manageable approaches to meet its own specific challenges.